Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5 : Puneri Paltan captain, Deepak Hooda admits Gujarat are unstoppable

Puneri Paltan were handed a kabaddi lesson on Friday. Playing at home against an in-form Gujarat, Pune were expected to give the visitors a good run for their money. Having lost just four times before Friday, the home side were keen to begin their home leg on a positive note.

However what followed was far from what they may have envisioned. Gujarat dominated from the get-go and relentlessly pursued Pune's raiders who didn't have even a moments respite.

To put things into perspective, substitute raider, Suresh Kumar was the highest scorer on the night for Pune, scoring six raid points. Sandeep Narwal finished the game with zero points while the captain, Deepak Hooda too could not score a single point against a miserly Gujarat defence.

Post the match, Hooda took some time to evaluate what went wrong. He conceded that the Fortunegiants look unstoppable at the moment.

"Our offence and defence both failed, I could not score raid points tonight. We assumed we could stop their raiders because our defenders are good but that was not the case. We made too many mistakes at both ends," he explained.

Asked if he believes Gujarat are the best side in the league, Deepak pondered for some seconds before answering- "The way Gujarat are playing, they're performing really well. They have been playing like this continuously, so I guess they are the best team in the league," he stated.

Gujarat shined in both departments, they played in a responsible manner and never lifted their foot off the pedal. Sukesh Hege who had been relieved of captaincy duties ended the night with a massive 15 raid points. he played freely and let Fazel dictate decisions on the mat.

Defender, Sunil Kumar was a livewire and managed to score 7 tackle points playing as a cover defender. The Iranian duo of Fazel and Abozar prevented Pune from attacking from wide positions. As a result, the likes of Deepak Hooda were forced to work extremely hard and it was evident from Hooda's performance.

Pune coach, BC Ramesh shrugged off suggestions that his side has been playing loosely off late. He believes that tonight was just a blip in what has so far been an extremely successful season for the Paltan.

"It's only in this game what we have played badly, we have played extremely well in our other games. We had already lost to them before and desperately wanted to win against them but we could not succeed," he said.